Our Lists of the Greatest American Authors

Harold Bloom, if you haven’t heard of him, is a longtime literary scholar and professor, as well as the author of dozens of books of literary criticism. His latest offering to the world is called The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime, in which he lists 12 American authors whose influence has shaped the American “creative spirit.” Now, the “American Sublime” is something that many critics have taken a whack at, each applying the term to different writers, but I’m not going to go into all that here.

Anyway, many of us Rioters were disturbed by the news of Bloom’s book, mostly because he seems to be stuck in some sort of temporal trap, in which anyone writing after the mid-20th century doesn’t exist. Oh, and he doesn’t realize that there are some pretty brilliant American writers who aren’t white. Amazing.

Now, I haven’t read this book, I just read about it, but I have two claims: 1. if Bloom is arguing that these 12 white (and almost all male) writers represent the pinnacle of American literature, then he needs to return to planet Earth and look around. 2. if Bloom is simply trying to define the “American Sublime” in terms of “canonical” writers, then excuse me but snoooooooooooooooooooze because writing a book about Whitman and Melville and Dickinson and Emerson has been done and done and done and let’s move on, shall we? I mean, Melville is one of my favorite writers ever. But this new book of criticism that stops with Faulkner seems dated, like Bloom wrote this 30 years ago and just found the manuscript in his attic and decided to publish it. WHATEVER.

The great thing that came out of the announcement of Bloom’s book, though, is the wonderful discussion that it sparked in the BR back-channels. So we decided to write our own lists of “12 Greatest American Authors,” taking into consideration influence, stylistic brilliance, and many other factors that made us love particular writers. Unlike Bloom, we didn’t restrict “American” to the United States, but included all of North, South, and Central America. We invite you to check out our lists (which are much more diverse and timely than Bloom’s) and tell us who you would include on a list of “top 12.”

(Note that many of these lists follow no particular order because that would be impossible. It was already excruciatingly difficult to pick just 12!)

Rachel C.

Jorge Luis Borges

Category ID: 13193

Category ID: 476

Category ID: 4284

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